Rash's Surname Index
Notes for John HART
John Hart, eldest son of Christopher and Mary Hart, born at Witney, Oxfordshire, England, November 16, 1651, came to Pennsylvania, when about thirty years of age. By deeds of lease and release dated October 11 and 12, 1681, he purchased of William Penn, of Worminghurst, county Surrey, England, Proprietary of Pennsylvania, 1000 acres of land to be laid out in the Province of Pennsylvania. He came to Pennsylvania in the summer of 1682, possibly in the same ship with Capt. Thomas Holme, stopping for a while at Upland, or Chester, where he was a member of the Grand Jury, September 12, 1682. He soon after this date removed to Byberry township, Philadelphia county, where 484 acres of his purchase were laid out as early as 1683. In 1684, 485 acres more of his 1000 acres were laid out in Warminster township, Bucks county. The Byberry tract is now owned by Gen. Edward de V. Morrell, and the Drexel family, but the so-called "hipped-roof Hart House," near Morrell's entrance, is not the house built by John Hart, but the one erected by Thomas Rush, husband of Esther Crispin, sister to Eleanor, wife of John Hart, Jr., in 1731, on seventy-two acres sold by John Hart to James Rush, father of Thomas, August 8, 1697. John Hart sold the remainder of his Byberry land at about the same date, reserving his private burial ground, which, however, he later made over to Abington Monthly Meeting, for public use; his great-grandson, John Hart, released it to the Overseers of the Poor for Byberry township, May 30, 1786. In the year 1697, or perhaps a little earlier, John Hart removed to his plantation in Warminster township, Bucks county, where his descendants remained for many generations and were one of the most distinguished families of the county.
John Hart was a member of Colonial Assembly from Philadelphia county, 1683-84, and signed the first "Form of Government" 2mo. 2, 1683. At the time of coming to the Province of Pennsylvania he was of such standing in the Society of Friends as to become a minister of ability and influence; he at once took a leading position among Friends in the Province, and was probably their leading minister. The meetings of the Society, including the monthly meetings, were held at his house until 1686, when the Meeting House was erected, and he filled the position of clerk of the Monthly Meeting, and was trustee of the lands held by the meeting and served on many of its important committees. In 1691 he joined George Keith's schism, and carried with him the greater part of his family connection, including the Rush and Collett families. Next to Keith himself, John Hart was the most important member of their organization. But at about the time John Hart removed to Warminster the Keithians had disintegrated and he and many others became Baptists. In 1702 he joined Pennypack Baptist Church, in Lower Dublin township, and was made assistant minister, and became as satisfactory a preacher among the Baptists as he had among the Quakers. He died in Warminster township, Bucks county, in September, 1714, and was buried in the Pennypack graveyard. Robert Proud, in his "History of Pennsylvania" describes John Hart, as a "man of rank, character, and reputation." In collaboration with Thomas Budd he wrote a small book on religious matters, one of the earliest books published in the Province of Pennsylvania.
John Hart married, in 1683, Susanna, daughter of Capt. John and Susanna (Lucas) Rush, of Byberry. During the Civil War in England, her father, John Rush, commanded a troop of horse in the Parliamentary Army. On June 8, 1648, he married Susanna Lucas, at Harton, Oxfordshire. About 1660 they embraced the principles of Friends, and in 1682 emigrated to Pennsylvania, where Capt. Rush took up a tract of land, laid out for 500 acres, in Byberry township, Philadelphia county, adjoining that of his future son-in-law, John Hart. They were the ancestors of the well-known Rush family of Philadelphia, including the celebrated Dr. Benjamin Rush; Dr. James Rush, who founded the Ridgway Library, and to whom descended Capt. John Rush's sword and watch; Col. Richard Rush, of "Rush's Lancers," and many others prominent in affairs and in Philadelphia Society. The earlier generations of the Rush family were largely intermarried with the Harts, Crispins and Colletts, and continued to live many generations on the original tract taken up by Capt. John Rush in Byberry and some of them on the original Hart tract in that township. Many of them were buried in the Hart burial-ground above mentioned. In his later years Dr. Benjamin Rush visited this graveyard, and his own birthplace nearby, and embraced a large tree which had been planted by his father; the incidents of which trip he described in a letter quoted by Watson, in his "Annals of Philadelphia," and others; which letter is of much local historical value, except that Dr. Rush woefully misinterpreted his grandfather's social position, because he had heard him called a "gunsmith." Susanna (Rush) Hart died February 27, 1725.
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